When I started feeling the pain caused by fibromyalgia, I was forced to avoid tasks like cleaning the house. I tried to do it before deciding I shouldn’t, but it hurt like hell and I couldn’t finish It, so I had to let my beautiful wife do this one. Other tasks, however, I was able to keep doing, like cooking, but I had to adapt the way I do them.
And it’s about how I adapted the way I do cooking I’m writing. Cooking forces me to stand up with minimal movement, and that causes me even more pain. My back hurts more, I get pain in the legs and it feels like I can sense every nerve and muscle fibre on them being stretched to the point of almost breakage.
How I did it
Because of this, I began dividing the cooking into small steps, with rest time between them to reduce the pain until I could do the next step. Sometimes I even need to put a hot water bottle in my back to help with the unbearable pain.
Although I’m writing about cooking, I apply this “task step > rest > task step > rest” to putting the clothes to wash and hang them to dry, tidy the house (only the small tasks that need to be done because I can’t handle a complete cleaning), and every other chore.
Do I do it every time I’m in pain?
I’m always in pain 24/7. The only thing that changes is the intensity. There are occasions when I can’t even force myself to get out of bed.
image from Unsplash
